Research at the University of Liverpool has supported the vaccination of more than 50 million people against a zoonotic brain infection that affects thousands of children across Asia every year.
The infection, called Japanese encephalitis (JE), is found in pigs and wading birds and transmitted by mosquitoes in areas of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that JE affects approximately 50,000 people a year and kills around 15,000. Those that survive the infection can be left brain damaged.
Scientists at Liverpool, in collaboration with Asian governments, the WHO and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), are improving understanding of the disease and developing immunisation programmes to control it, with the support of funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Children in poor rural communities are particularly vulnerable to the infection, but as a result of improved diagnostics and clinical management, vaccinations against the disease have now reached more than 50 million children and the programme continues across Asia.
Professor Tom Solomon, Head of the University's Brain Infection Group, said: "Japanese encephalitis invades the central nervous system and can cause seizures, paralysis and in severe cases, death. Approximately 50 per cent of people who survive the infection are left with physical and mental illness, which could include personality changes. It affects children between the ages of one to 15, but adults, including tourists to the region, can contract the disease also.
"Although we knew this disease was important, five years ago it was virtually unrecognised due to the difficulty in diagnosing cases. It causes disability more often than it causes death, but with no standard method of quantifying the disability, it was difficult for governments to make decisions on introducing vaccines. We have been developing ways of diagnosing JE and measuring the outcome of the infection, and these methods are now being used in many countries across Asia."